


Lithium

by Ryo Hoshi (Hoshi_Ryo)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adopted Children, Alien Cultural Differences, Gen, Grubs, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Violence, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon, Psychic Abilities, Psychological Horror, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 06:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6843661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoshi_Ryo/pseuds/Ryo%20Hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The actually important thing everybody forgot, it turned out, was that drug addiction was sometimes just amateur hour at the self-service psychiatric clinic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lithium

**Author's Note:**

> Making any call on any troll's mental health status is extremely problematic due to the fact that trolls are psychic aliens.  That said, hearing the Voices of the Outer Ring is probably hazardous to your health in every sense, regardless of their social _or_ objective reality.  (So: Any and all interpretations readers may have of OC's mental health status at any point in the story are equally right.  Even the mutually exclusive ones.   _Especially_ the mutually exclusive ones.)

It did not take long for the first purple grub to be born, despite everything that might have been tried, and Kanaya’s rainbow-drinker or perhaps Jadeblood instincts were rather against simply squishing an innocent grub.  This had already been tested by Roxy and Dirk and all things considered it was probably a good thing that Rose had been there to point out that there was too good a chance that ‘suicide by troll Mama Bear instincts’ might be deemed to be a Just Death.  (The argument that stuck more at the time, however, was that the cute little Violetblood grub they tried to squish was now her adopted baby and if they killed hir Rose _would_ be fine seeing how many times were required for it to stick.) 

They mostly agreed to fall back and watch and wait. 

 

After hir first pupation, Dave and Karkat tentatively took her in.  It was more something within Karkat that insisted, Dave had been reluctant, the same echoes of memories that made Karkat feel he needed to making Dave not eager to try. 

Not long after the Voices started. 

 

The household was dissolving in irony and anger over time.  Loriel did understand from things her aunts and uncles and cousins said that this wasn’t normal, that things were wrong. 

The Voices agreed, but she didn’t like what the Voices said. 

(For one, as much as her dads kept fighting, she didn’t think Dave’s skull would make a good hat and she liked more colors when she painted.) 

She started trying to find ways to quiet them. 

 

Asking Rose was, in retrospect, not a good idea. 

(Freudian psychology was not, in any sense, in any position to deal with somebody with what was the inborn ability to hear Voices from the Farthest Ring; no amount of skill at arcane majykks prepared one to deal what was essentially a neurological disease that _happened_ to present with primarily psychiatric symptoms.) 

Asking Terezi was, Loriel knew, not a good idea without even trying. 

(Loriel never quite understood why Terezi seemed to hate her.  The idea that, perhaps, it was not right to hate somebody for sharing a blood color was not really present in Terezi’s mind.  Others of her kind would have only felt it somewhat unusual that it was for her blackcrush’s likely semi-Descendant and looked upon it with some disapproval.  Such things were more acceptable when the relationship had been consummated.) 

 

Loriel did not like what some of the Voices suggested.  Some deep part of her knew that things had once been worse--some ancestral memory told her that no longer was there the Voice that spoke with Aunt Callie’s blood or in the shade of pale bleached bone--but that did not actually _help_. 

The closest the Voices got to good ideas were merely outright weird, and they never seemed to understand that Loriel was pretty certain that no, things did not work that way. 

(Besides, she had heard tales of what Aunt Rose and Roxy would do to anybody who put a kitten through a gristmill, and doubted that even _if_ the Voices were right and she could use the grist produced to remake the kitten like new that the Lalondes would be any _happier_ with her.) 

The Voices meant well.  That, at least, was certain. 

The Voices did not understand people.  Loriel had to agree _there_.  But she suspected that she was doing better than they were because she _knew_ she did not understand.  The Voices...thought they did. 

The Voices kept wanting her to do things. 

The Voices would not shut up, and she could not get her hands on anything that would quiet them. 

 

If Rose had chosen a different school of psychology, or thought to See farther ahead about Loriel, she might have understood a bit better.  She would have known to raid Roxy’s home, found the stash of codes for making the various medications she had once needed. 

(The same things that could quiet the Voices could quiet the Visions, let her rest her inner eyes when it got to be too much.) 

She might still not have known how to use the various drugs she would have been able to synthesize, but that would be fine.  It’d still be amateur hour at the self-serve psychiatric clinic, but at least it would have been a stocked one. 

 

The Voices could not be ignored forever. 

 

Loriel snapped. 

 

And later as the blood was cleaned up and blame flew everywhere, only one of the survivors thought to mention that this had been a preventable tragedy.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record: _**If**_ Loriel was a human and being raised as a human member of Western culture, she'd probably get a nice firm diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.  She isn't; she's a member of a psychic species, and you think Karkat wouldn't be raising her as an Alternian troll?  (Sure, he might keep it to what he considers to be the best parts of Alternian troll culture, but he's going to do it.)
> 
>  
> 
> By Alternian troll standards 'culling people because the Voices said so' stands a very strong chance of being considered _not_ a _mental health_ issue.  Canonically 'hearing voices' is something that trolls really do for reals--they _are_ psychic aliens.  (And yes, with things like hearing voices you need to use culturally-adjusted measurements--hearing voices in and of itself is _Normal_ with a capital N.  When it crosses into Um territory is _culturally_ determined.)


End file.
